1.
"In the social production of their life men enter certain
necessary economic relations which are independent of their will,
conditions of productions corresponding to a certain stage of
the development of their material forces of production."
MARX.

2.
To the arms, properly speaking, to munition and defensive implements
of all kinds, including lighting arrangements, to fortresses
and war vessels, are added,
for instance, the military means of communication (horses, wagons,
bicycles, construction of roads and bridges, inland navigation,
railroads, automobiles, telegraphy, wireless telegraphy, telephones),
not forgetting the telescope, air-ships, photography and war
dogs.

3.
The Italian development in the XVth century is also of the greatest
interest in this connection and allures the investigator into
absorbing studies. It confirms throughout our fundamental conception.
Cf. Burckhardt, "Kultur der Renaissance in Italien,"
9th edition.

4.
This also applies to the Russian revolution (of 1905) in first
stage. A characteristic instance, among innumerable others, is
the armed rising in Moscow in December, 1905, the astonishing
tenacity of which finds an explanation in the cooperation of
the mass of the urban population with the fighting revolutionaries
who, by the way, were not numerous. The tactics of the urban
guerilla method, splendidly developed in Moscow, will be epochal.

5.
The working together in factories, etc., and the living together
in the "working-class neighborhood" have however to
be taken into account.

6.
Cf. Burckhardt, I, p. 22.

7.
Resolutions adopted at a conference of German princes and their
representatives at Carlsbad, in 1819. These resolutions concerned
stringent police measures against the so-called demagogues, especially
professors and students who had the temerity to remind the German
princes of their promises to grant constitutions to their peoples,
promises made when the princes were in great trouble. Those police
persecutions lasted for a whole generation and found innumerable
victims among the democratic elements of Germany. The period
is generally described as the demagogue chase. -- TRANSLATOR.

8.
Metternich, the Austrian statesman, was the head of German and
European reaction. This evil genius of Germany dominated the
affairs of Germany until 1848, when he tremblingly fled to London
before the infuriated people of Vienna. -- TRANSLATOR.

Chapter Two

9.
Bernstein [the prominent German Socialist leader] wrongly stated
in Vie socialiste of June 5, 1905, that modern military
institutions were only the heritage of the more or less feudal
monarchy.

10.
One need only consider Russia where, however, entirely peculiar
circumstances which did not arise from interior conditions helped
to bring about the result. Standing armies resting on a basis
different from that of universal military service are, for instance,
the mercenary armies. In the Italian cities of the XVth century
militias were also known (Burckhardt, p. 327).

11.
In his well-known letter to Bluntschli (December, 1880) we read:
"Eternal peace is a dream, and not even a beautiful one,
and war is a part of God's world order. In it are developed the
noblest virtues of man, courage and abnegation, dutifulness and
self-sacrifice at the risk of life. Without war the world would
sink into materialism." A few months earlier Moltke had
written: "Every war is a national misfortune" (Collected
Works V, p. 193 and p. 200), and in 1841 he even wrote in an
article that appeared in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung:
"We confess openly to be in favor of the much derided idea
of a general European peace."

12.
The value of the entire foreign trade of the world rose, according
to Hubler's tables, from 75,224 million marks in 1891 to 109,000
million marks in 1905.

14.
Moltke's views in this respect were highly fantastic. According
to him the times when wars were resolved upon by cabinets were
indeed past, but he considers the political party leaders
to be wicked and dangerous provokers of war. The party leaders
and -- the stock exchange! It is true that here and there he
has a deeper view of things (Collected Works, 3, pp. I, 126,
135, 138).

15.
Characterized by that fantastic abortion, entitled, "The
Invasion of 1910."

16.
On account of the quarrel about Morocco France spent, in 1906,
far more than a hundred million for the military protection of
her eastern frontiers.

17.
About the alleged, not yet fully explained plan of Semler, the
Reichstag representative of the Hamburg shipowners, to capture
Fernando Po in the Jameson manner, see the budgetary debates
of the Reichstag of December, 1906.

18.
That is not disproved because he declared for the time being
against universal military service, which is regretted by the
Kreuzzeitung [the junker organ], of November 29, 1906,
because, according to the paper, universal service would educate
the English people into a better understanding of the seriousness
of war. In Germany, of course, universal military service
has only the importance to force the people to make sacrifices
in blood and money, in conformity with the will of the noble
knights of the Kreuzeeitung, whilst the decision about
peace and war rests with those for whom the seriousness of war
exists least. They can even appreciate democracy for abroad!
Concerning the strong tendency in England and America towards
a universal militia, see p. 51.

19.
Cf. p. 51 and Roosevelt's message of December 4, 1906.

20.
Chiefly motivated by the Morocco conflict.

21.
Twenty-four and three-fourths millions for the navy, 51 millions
for the army, 7 millions for interest -- a total increase of
some 83 million marks as compared with the budget of 1906-7.
Fine prospects of further extravagant naval armaments were held
out by an evidently inspired article that appeared in the Reichbote,
on December 21, 1906. To all that must be added the enormous
expenses for colonial wars (454 millions for the China Expedition,
490 millions already for the rebellion in Southwest Africa, 2
millions for the rebellion in East Africa, etc.); the question
of footing those bills led, in December, 1906, to a conflict
and the dissolution of the Reichstag.

22.
See Berliner Tageblatt of October 27, 1906. Note above
all the notorious resolution handed in by Ablass, December 13,
1906, and the Liberal platform for the Reichstag elections of
January 25, 1907.

23.
La Revue, October 1, 1900. The "actual results achieved"
by the movement for disarmament, are a well preserved secret
of the editorial board of the Revue.

24.
Germany's colonial expenditure is in a greatly preponderating
measure of a military nature, even according to Dernburg's memorial
of October, 1906, in spite of all his cooking of accounts.

25.
Since December 31, 1900, France possesses a real colonial army
which has brought her the saddest disappointments. See the Hamburg
Correspondent, December 7, 1906 (No. 621), also note 18 on
next page and p. 72. In Germany they are busily engaged in creating
a colonial army. We are approaching it at the double quick.

27.
Military punishment, too, here adopts a peculiarly brutal form.
About France's foreign legion and bataillons d'Afrique
see Däumig, cited above; about the abolition of the "biribiri,
p. 53

28.
This hypocritical and, at the same time, shamefaced excuse is
now being dropped with frank cynicism; see the article, signed
by G B., in the monthly magazine, Die deutschen Kolonien
(October, 1906), and the remark made by Strantz at the pan-German
convention (September, 1906), where he said: "In the colonies
we don't want to convert people into Christians; they are to
work for us. This humanitarian softheadedness is downright ridiculous.
German sentimentality has deprived us of a man like Peters."
Again, Heinrich Hartert wrote in the Tag, December 21,1906,
that it is "the duty of the missions . . . to adapt themselves
to given circumstances"; but they had succeeded "in
frequently becoming a nuisance to the commercial man."
It is at this point that the principal friction arises between
the German Clerical Party and the Government in regard to colonial
policy, this alone explains the furious fight entered upon in
December 1906, by the merchant Dernburg against the so-called
collateral government of the Clerical Party. --For America the
Kreuzzetung ( September 29, 1906) preaches: "The
simple extermination of whole tribes of Indians is so inhuman
and unchristian that it cannot be defended under any circumstances,
especially as it is in no way a question of existence for
the Americans." But where it is such a question whole
tribes may be "exterminated" even by the believer in
Christian charity -- according to the views of the colonial Christian.

29.
See the memorable debates of the German Reichstag between November
c8 and December 4, 1906, where the " abscess was lanced."

30.
See Hamburger Nachrichten, November 3, I906.

31.
The number of the victims of the wars between 1799 and 1904 (excluding
the Russo-Japanese War) is estimated at about 15,000,000 men
killed.

33.
That task of bolstering up the existing interior order of things
devolves upon militarism not only in the capitalist order of
society, but in all societies based upon class-division.

34.
See the struggle between the French state and church during the
conflict of December, 1906.

35.
See the disorders during the election in Upper Silesia in 1903.

36.
Since the above was written great changes have taken place in
the army system of Great Britain. During the world war the mercenary
army has disappeared and a conscript army has taken its place.
Moreover, in the years immediately preceding the war Great Britain's
volunteer forces underwent great changes in composition and name.
The militia, too, ceased to exist, either in name or in fact,
after 1908. [TRANSLATOR. ]

37.
In 1905-6, 229,820. In the Native States 136,837 soldiers in
1903.

38.
Recruiting is becoming ever more difficult, and the percentage
of alien recruits is growing, a fact that worries the American
government.

39.
See p. 151.

40.
Even Sheriff von Sievers-Roemershof writes of the "blood-thirsty
Circassians" in the Dünazeitung of December
4, (17,) 1906.

41.
Not even, as now proposed, in the modern way of jobbing away
and discounting concessions and natural resources to American
trusts, that last invention and cry of despair of the financial
policy of Czarism

Chapter Three

42.
A word coined in Germany to describe those parts of Prussia situated
east of the river Elbe, the home of the Prussian junkers. [TRANSLATOR.]

43.
"Kadavergehorsam" (the obedience of the corpse)
is the expressive word used in the German original. [TRANSLATOR.]

44.
A dangerous method from a sanitary point of view, which in France,
for instance, is leading to a very extensive infection of the
people with tuberculosis and syphilis. The French army shows
from five to seven times more cases of tuberculosis than the
German army. In a few decades, exclaims a warning voice in France,
France will be decimated if the barracks system be not abolished.
young men. Various means are employed for that purpose.

45.
We need only point to the intentioned helplessness of the police
in face of disorderly soldiers, and especially officers. The
reader is further referred to the privilege of the soldiery to
march in processions of unending lengths through the cities and
thus to disturb traffic greatly without rhyme or reason -- to
satisfy, of course, the demands of military æsthetics.
The acme of the ridiculous conceit of this carefully reared craziness
was seen some years ago in Berlin when the fire brigade, hastening
to a fire, was simply stopped by a military column that crossed
its route and that felt no inclination to have its beautiful
and majestic order deranged. It is true, this was condemned later
on.

46.
These are indeed strange saints! The reader may remember the
Bilse case of the month of November, 1903, the many small garrisons"
after the Forbach model, the gambling and champagne decrees,
the officers' dueling practices (that fine fleur of the
officers' honor), the stabbings of Brüsewitz and the shooting
propensities of Hüssener, the Ruhstrat affair and that of
the "harmless," the novels of Bilse and Beyerlein depicting
the life of the officers with photographic truth, "First-class
People" by Schlicht (Count Baudissin), the scandals about
Jesko von Puttkamer and, last but not least, that about Prince
Arenberg which also belongs to this category. The French
"Little Garrison," Verdun, raised much dust in the
fall of 1900. In the eyes of the worshippers of the uniform all
these things are of course mostly considered as mere "amiable,
piquant weaknesses" of the worshipped saint, who is, however,
very particular about people confessing the Christian creed.
Naturally, we find here, too, that international solidarity of
the noblest and best. An interesting case is the ragging practice
of the officers of the English grenadier guard regiments, which
were exposed at the beginning of 1903.

47.
The German non-commissioned officer has been called the "representative
of God on earth."

48.
The most shocking proof is furnished by the statistics of suicides
among soldiers. Those suicides of soldiers are another international
phenomenon. According to official "statistics"
one soldier among 3,700 committed suicide in Germany in I90I;
in Austria, one among 920 In the I0th Austrian army corps 80
soldiers and 12 officers committed suicide in I901, 127 others
became insane and left as invalids in consequence of self-mutilation
and maltreatment. In the same period 400 men deserted and 725
were condemned to hard labor or close arrest. In Austria, of
course, the conflict of nationalities greatly contributes to
aggravate the situation.

49.
This premium system, with a maximum of 1000 marks was introduced
for the whole of Germany in I89I, after having been in existence
before that time in Saxony and Württemberg and after having
had a forerunner in the empire in the "non-recurrent extra-pay."
It is also met with elsewhere; in France, however, where the
amounts are much higher (up to 4,000 francs), it has been employed
with little success. The schools for non-commissioned officers
are also a case in point.

50.
The speech made by Chancellor Caprivi (Bismarck's successor)
in the Reichstag, on February 27, 1891, is the classical confession
of a noble capitalist-militarist soul of its troubles and anxieties,
its hopes and aims and the methods adopted in the pursuit of
those aims. It throws wide open a window through which we can
have a good look at the most secret parts of that soul. The speech
begins with the statement that the government refrained from
re-introducing the expired anti-socialist law [by which
Bismarck had sought to fight down socialism during the preceding
dozen years or so -- TRANSLATOR] only on the understanding that
all possible measures be resorted to in order to cut the ground
from under the feet of the Social Democracy and engage in a struggle
with it; one of those measures (clearly a substitute for
the anti-socialist law) was to consist of the premiums for
non-commissioned officers in conjunction with the "Zivilversorgungsschein"
(a warrant entitling the holder to a place in a civil office).
Caprivi continued: "The demands made on non-commissioned
officers increase on account of the growing education of the
nation. A superior can fill his position only if he feels superior
to the men entrusted to his charge....

"The maintenance of discipline has in
itself become more difficult, and it becomes harder still when
we have to take up the struggle with the Social Democracy; I
mean by this not the struggle by means of shooting and bayoneting.
My memory goes back to the year 1848. Conditions were far better
at that time, for the ideas had then not arisen through long
years of propaganda; they cropped up suddenly and the old non-commissioned
officers had a much easier task in dealing with the men than
they have now in dealing with the Social Democracy. (Quite right!
on the benches of the parties of the Right.) And, touching upon
the most extreme case, we want far better non-commissioned officers
in street fighting against the Social Democracy than in fighting
against the enemy. When facing the enemy the troops can be filled
with enthusiasm and willingness to sacrifice by means of patriotism
and other lofty sentiments. Street fighting and all that is connected
with it is not calculated to raise the self-reliance of the troops,
who always feel that they are facing their countrymen."
. .. "The non-commissioned officers can retain their ascendancy
only if we seek to raise their status. The allied governments
[this is the official title of the German federal government
-- TRANSLATOR] desire to raise the level of the class of the
non-commissioned officers." He went on to say that it was
necessary to create a "class of people" who were "bound
to the state with every fibre of their existence."

This is likewise a fine description of the
psychology of the elite troops.

51.
Arrest combined with the deprivation of food, bed and light;
extra-drill, etc.; the barbaric "tying up" in war-time.
The Austrian practice of "binding hand and foot" and
"tying up," the Belgian cachots, the international
naval cat-o'-ninetails and similar devices are well known. Less
well remembered are perhaps the atrocious instruments of torture
employed in the French disciplinary sections, even against "political"
refractory elements -- the poucettes, the menottes
and the crapaudine (see the pamphlet, "Les bagnes
militaires," published in 1902 by the Fédération
socialiste autonome de Cher, a speech by Breton in the French
Chamber, with illustrations; Georges Darien, "Biribiri,"
(the collective name of all military disciplinary institutions
in North Africa), Dubois-Desaulle, "Sous la casagne,"
both published in Paris by Stock. Material about the compagnies
de discipline, pénitenciers and the travaux forces
(penal companies, penitentiaries and hard labor) in the French
Foreign Legion and the victims of these institutions can be found
in Däumig's article in the Neue Zeit, vol. 99-100,
p. 365, and especially p. 369. At this writing energetic attempts
are being made to suppress the "biribiri," (Debates
of the French Chamber, December 8 and 10, 1906).

52.
The military results of these educational methods are
dealt with elsewhere. We must also point out their moral
results, which induce the bourgeois, the anarchist and semianarchist
opponents of militarism to let themselves be carried away by
an indignation breathing an uncommon passion and delivered with
a verbose pathos. "The army is the school of crime"
(Anatole France); "drunkenness, sexual immorality and hypocrisy,
that is what life in the barracks teaches" (Prof. Richet).
According to the "Manuel du soldat" the time
of military service is an "apprenticeship in brutality and
vulgarity"; "a school of debauchery"; it leads
to "moral cowardice, submission and slavish fearfulness."
Indeed, one can scarcely imagine certain military festivals without
the patriotic drunkenness, which is of course "upholding
the state." Consult the Leipeiger Volkszeitung, of
December I, 1906 about "the drinking and rioting festivals"
of the veterans' associations (words used by Pastor César).
The sanitary results are likewise anything but gratifying.
Concerning the French army, see p. 64, note 3; the sanitary state
of the standing armies of England and America, those democratic
countries, is downright terrible; the death rate is far higher
in those countries than in Germany. Cf. Surgeon-General R. M.
O'Reilly's report of 1906 with regard to dysentery and alcoholism.

53.
We naturally include in the battle against the interior enemy
the fight carried on against the spirit of international solidarity
which is opposed to "militarism for abroad."

54.
It should be explained that in Germany it is the ambition of
most well-to-do young men to become a lieutenant of the reserve
after having served in the army for one year as a volunteer.
The title of lieutenant of the reserve is the key to official
society. [TRANSLATOR ]

55.
The bold exploit of the "captain of Koepenick" that
ingenious cobbler and jail-bird, has exactly in this connection
been pointed to as the writing on the wall, and that also by
Liberals.

56.
Colonel Gädke, when no longer in active service, had criticized
the German war minister in the columns of the Berliner Tageblatt,
a radical newspaper whose military expert he was at the time.
The criticism concerned a speech in the Reichstag in which the
minister had defended the duel. Gädke had to appear before
a court and lost his military title. He then took the case before
the imperial (federal) court and won. [TRANSLATOR.]

57.
Liebknecht here refers to the former custom of making old superannuated
soldiers school-teachers. [TRANSLATOR.]

58.
There exists in Germany a kind of union of these officials --
The Association of German Military Claimants of Civil Employment.

Chapter Four

59.
The men that reorganized the entire Prussian army system after
the Prussian army had been shattered at Jena by Napoleon, in
1806. [TRANSLATOR.]

60.
In Manteuffel's sensible command of April 18, 1885, we read:
"Insults attack the sense of honor and kill it, and the
officer who insults his subordinates undermines his own position;
for there is no dependence on the loyalty or bravery of him who
allows himself to be insulted." . . . "In a word --
as the subordinates are treated by their superiors, from the
general to the lieutenant thus they are."

61.
A slight indication is furnished by the mass of deserters and
men liable to military service who disobeyed orders to join the
army. No less than 15,000 German deserters perished in the French
colonial army during the first thirty years of the existence
of the "splendid German Empire," whilst the bloody
battle of Vionville in the Franco-German War resulted in only
I6,000 men being killed and wounded.

62.
Every soldier fighting in German Southwest Africa meant an annual
expense of 9,500 marks to the German Empire in 1906

63.
In France, for instance, in 1905: 1,101,260,000 francs. Since
1870 France has spent some 40 billion francs for military purposes
(exclusive of the colonies).

64
"Kulturaufgaben" -- a very difficult word to translate
correctly. The lately much derided German word Kultur does not
merely signify material civilization, but civilized life in its
widest aspect. [TRANSLATOR.]

65.
The practice of officers of engaging private soldiers as domestics.
[TRANSLATOR]

66.
See Hillquit's History of Socialism in the United States, which
has been mostly used for the part referring to the United States.

67.
The name of an inoffensive workman who had one of his hands hacked
off by an infuriated custodian of law and order whose identity
was never disclosed. [TRANSLATOR.]

68.
The foot-note, continued on page 150, refers to the first great
modern strike of the Westphalian miners, in 1880, when the men,
who had great faith in the then very young Emperor, sent a deputation
to Berlin to ask for his help. [TRANSLATOR.]

69.
A great German iron-master who was notorious for his reactionary
views and his patriarchial ideas on industrial life [TRANSLATOR.]

70.
Ludwigshafen in the Palatinate was literally occupied by troops
on the Sunday preceding the Reichstag elections of 1887, and
only the self-possession of the Social Democrats prevented the
rifles from going off. Of interest in this connection is an utterance
by the German Emperor which is entered under December 12, 1889,
in Hohenlohe's reminiscences: "then (when the Social Democrats
had the majority in the Berlin city council) they would plunder
the bourgeoisie; it was all one to him, he would have the castle
loop-holed and watch them pillage; then the bourgeois would be
forced to implore him to help them."

71
The first May-day demonstration (1890) deserves particular attention
as the "military party" (Hohenlohe's reminiscences,
September 14, 1893) then wanted very much to use the occasion
for a bloody settlement with the troublesome and hated Social
Democracy. into the very heart of militarism. That rattling of
cannons still rings in our ears and encourages us to proceed
with our fight against militarism with indefatigable persistence
and unsparing ruthlessness.

72.
This coming man is characterized by the Berlin Tageblatt
as follows: "Helmut von Moltke is considered a pronounced
reactionary, a quality tempered with a certain soldierly frankness
and buoyancy, but he is also said to have spiritualistic inelinations.
He is not at all a man of theory, but rather a dashing fighter
who also possesses the 'courage of coolness' to carry on politics
with the slashing sabre and the shooting rifle." So here
we find at last the qualities desired by our violent reactionaries
all in one heap!

73.
Grape-shot prince was the name given73 the Prince of Prussia, the
later Emperor William I., who was the head of the military camarilla
that tried to crush and finally succeeded in crushing the revolutionary
movement in Germany in 1848 and 1849. [TRANSLATOR.]

74.
The German title of Nietzsche's "The Twilight of the Idols."
It is a titular parody on Wagner's "Götterdämmerung."
[TRANSLATOR.]